


With Feathers Scorched to Ashes

by illwynd



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Choking, M/M, Non-Explicit, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 15:05:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When you betray me, I will kill you," Thor says to his brother. But he doesn't know where those words will lead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Feathers Scorched to Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Written after watching the first Thor: The Dark World trailer, to try to alleviate some feels. Or perhaps aggravate them.

He doesn’t mean it. He says it knowing that he doesn’t mean it, knowing that Loki will know he doesn’t mean it. He says it because he has to. Because Loki is quick enough by far to realize that such a threat from his lips means that this is _serious_. That for once Loki must simply obey him, no matter what comes between them later.

Loki watches him. He looks as if he has lived long, empty lifetimes alone in this bright cage. He is slumped against the wall, his arms sagging from his shoulders, his hair a ratted mess; his body is a useless, hollow, wasted thing in which his restless mind has paced and spun. He uncoils a little more to meet Thor’s gaze.

“When you betray me,” Thor says, “I will kill you.”

And though he knew he would say it and knew he would never mean it, the shock of actually speaking the words sears through Thor’s mind, hot and vivid. He feels it in his throat and on his tongue and in his chest.

Loki watches him, and his mouth smiles when he answers, his eyes red-rimmed and entirely weary, and that is the extent of his reaction to Thor’s threat. There is no surprise, no dark smirking pleasure, no quickly hidden twinge of pain.

Thor said it knowing he would not mean it, and that Loki would know that, so he tries not to let himself be frustrated at this unnerving calm as Loki stares him down and agrees to Thor’s terms, with no hesitation at all.

But the taste on his tongue is so bitter it burns, burns without fading, until he thinks it might never go away. He did not know that words he didn’t mean could taint him so.

*

He was right not to say “if.” He was right to say “when.”

Loki betrays him—Thor knows that is what this is from the first moment, from the sly tilt of Loki’s head. From the mean glint in Loki’s eyes, as if to mock him for his promise as Thor understands what Loki has done.

And Thor…

For the last several years, he has grieved. He has been humbled, he has lost, he has sorrowed. He has stood like a man with his arms over his face as the blows rained down, until he was exhausted even with protecting himself: Loki returned, like he was brought back from death on the strength of Thor’s fiercest wishes…but returned fighting him. Hating him. Thor has bled, he has put his hand to a wound in his side and felt his guts filling with cold, with hardened steel, at the misery of it. He has withstood it all. So when Thor sees the glint in green eyes as they turn on him, all at once his anger and frustration boils over. It has been pent up for so long, like the rising torrent of a flood after a storm, like a river overflowing its banks. He has hated no one for what happened. Blamed no one. Has let out the brunt of his rage on no one at all.

So it sears past his teeth, hot as a firestorm wind, the words burning his mouth again as he hurls himself at his brother--this time before Loki can even think to set a double in his place--and they go down tumbling. They strike the rocky ground and roll, dust kicking up around them under the thick grey sky. Thor says those words over and over as they fight, growls them as they wrestle and pummel and gouge, and Loki twists and thrashes and hisses as best he can, but Thor, in his long-trammeled anger, is stronger and faster and Loki cannot hope to win. When they come to a halt they are both scraped and battered, a few sluggish red gashes on Loki’s hands where his fingers tighten on Thor’s wrists, Loki’s throat fragile and hot in Thor’s grasp.

Thor says it again. He means it now. He wants to do it.

And Loki knows it: the shock is bright and wet in Loki’s eyes, the shiver of sudden unwanted horror that was not there the first time, as Thor says it again, teeth gritted. And squeezes.

Then Loki is letting go. Letting his hands fall away from Thor’s wrists. Smiling, and it is not the same weary and knowing smile beneath red-rimmed eyes. It is something else, something Thor thinks for a moment he cannot recognize. Loki tilts his head back; unconsciously, Thor squeezes harder, and he feels the hum of his brother trying to draw breath.

Neither of them moves. Thor wants to do it. He wants to squeeze until Loki goes limp beneath him, until his eyes roll back in his head, until he falls forever silent of the venom that has replaced his brother’s once-silver voice.

And then Thor understands that smile: Loki looks at him as if the only brother he wants now is the one who will say those words. Words that burn still, like a brand on Thor’s tongue, as if somehow by them Loki has marked him as his own. As if hatred were a surer bond than love and Loki craves it.

Thor has his brother pinned to the ground by his neck, and Thor hates his brother for making him hate him, but he squeezes because he _wants to_. And Loki lets him and smiles.

Then the moment is over and Loki is out from beneath him, snapping himself away so swiftly and keenly Thor isn’t sure how it happens, except that the next thing he knows Loki is standing up, rubbing at his reddened throat and beating the dust from his already ragged clothing. And somehow Loki is extending him a hand, a wry laugh rasping out of him.

“Best to save that for later, hm?” he says. “Now, just… act as if I have very recently betrayed you, won’t you?”

And then the Dark Elves are appearing from beyond a line of tall boundary stones a short way away, and there is no more time for thought, and the well-stoked blaze of Thor’s anger serves him again at last.

*

It is later. It is, as always, so much later.

It is brutal, their eternal battle, and endless as a spring fed by the bottomless sea. Thor’s shoulders heave as he holds his brother down, again the same promised threats as he swears he will twist Loki’s head from his neck for his wickedness, his betrayal, his lies. They have been here a thousand times, and it is the only thing Thor can see in the tangle of black hair, the taut, bent frame of Loki’s body, the wretched hollows of his brother’s eyes. Not love or trust or the quick, laughing boy he grew beside. He sees only Loki’s wickedness, and his own vow to slay him.

As always, Thor means it. As always, he burns with bright, mindless rage at the one who would stir up storm and wave and bring it crashing down upon himself, meeting it with equal violence.

As always, what stops him is not hesitation or mercy but _this_ : the ferocity with which Loki juts up between his spread knees, the hunger with which Loki kisses him when Thor’s hands slide from his neck. Loki’s tongue slipping into the heat of a mouth that has said those words so many times and been so marked by them. Thor doesn’t understand what this is, but it is not love, because they don’t love each other anymore. They don’t. They hate each other, they bruise each other, and sometimes—like this—they try to destroy each other, and they are bound together forever by it.

Loki’s arm around his waist drags their hips together, and Loki smiles open-mouthed into their kiss as his other hand threads into Thor’s hair, tugging and twisting.

And this is the only brother Thor wants anymore. The one he would kill, and the one who would reduce him to ashes.

**Author's Note:**

> The amazing Mirax has done an illustration. Go look at it. It's lovely! [On tumblr](http://thefirstwhokneels.tumblr.com/post/50370628089/then-loki-is-letting-go-letting-his-hands-fall)


End file.
